


Blaster-Psych

by Davechicken



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 21:30:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8684044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Phasma is struggling. Her boyfriends are not the best at helping.





	

**Author's Note:**

> PTSD/Mental Health, Recovery, Distressing Themes, No One Is Perfect

Kylo Ren is not the most emotionally controlled of people, and he’d be the third person to admit it (after Hux, and possibly his mother). As such, when greeted with a blank face and a smile that looks like a child painted it on ( _badly_ ), he is left without understanding of how to react. He can feel the weird numb-rage wave inside of her, like the heat from an engine that’s already been switched off. 

“I’m fine,” she lies, and continues whatever she was doing.  


Kylo knows she is not, but he doesn’t know how to help. All he knows is her pain is like icewater gulped into his stomach, wet and horrible and making his breathing hurt as he presses against it. 

(Once, he’d been good at this. He’d been able to hold another child’s hand, and eke some pain out. He’d been able to sense who was feeling low, and sit beside them with his toys. But that was another him, another lifetime ago.)

The fear and worry he feels at this being beyond his control makes anger bubble, but he stomps it down with all he has. It’s not useful, and he has to remember that. Getting angry doesn’t fix things, and if he feels that, if he loses his cool, it’s important to work out _why_ and try to distance enough to deal with it. 

(Don’t shout. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t raise your hand - even to the room.)

Kylo chews the inside of his mouth, and then reaches out to touch her shoulder. A glancing contact, meant to offer her the reassurance of physical support, and to open a conduit for reducing her tension, but she shrugs it off wordlessly. 

Okay. Breathe. Not angry. Take stock.

She’s hurt, and he doesn’t want her to be. But maybe she wants to be? Kylo knows sometimes his bad moods just need to work themselves out, and it could be like that with her? He’s torn by his indecision, frozen and glitching.

“I told you, I’m fine,” she says, and leaves him on his own.  


***

Kylo tells Hux, in the hope that Hux - with his previous knowledge of their Captain - will know how to handle it. Hux is also not the most emotionally capable of people, but he’s been getting more open as Kylo’s been getting more calm. 

Sometimes Kylo wonders how two highly-strung neurotic people like them even manage to be in the same room together, and he’s come to the conclusion many a time that it’s Phasma’s more stable influence that helps smooth the rough edges over.

But what happens when your glue comes unstuck?

“How did you… normally… handle it?”  


“…she would… shoot things for a while, and eventually she would come back.”  


“So you just… left her to it?”  


“Most things will right themselves, you know,” Hux says, his words airy but his eyes not.   


“I want to help her.”  


“…we could… ask her what she needs?”  


Oh, why didn’t Kylo think of that?

***

They sit around the dining table, and Kylo notices she’s barely eating. Her responses to discussion are curt and precise, as if she’s reporting back to a superior officer, and not dining with her two lovers.

“Phasma… you…” Kylo wrings the napkin in his hand. “…seem to be… a bit… low.”  


“I told you, I’m _fine_ ,” she snaps, her eyes angry.  


“Okay, but if you weren’t? Even a little bit… how would you want us to help you?”  


“By staying out of my business,” she snaps, and looks down at her plate.  


She isn’t eating, and Kylo panics. This has made things worse, and he kicks Hux under the table in a desperate bid for help.

“Perhaps you could have some R&R time?” Hux offers, blindly groping.

“Are you saying I am incapable of performing my duties to your required standards, Sir?”  


Kylo winces at the title. Perfect. It isn’t sexy, playful, or friendly. It’s surly, churlish, insubordinate. “Phasma…”

“No,” Hux cuts in. “I’m not. I was merely reminding you that your allocated leave is for rest and recuperation. That if you feel the need for–”  


“I do not,” she says, and stands up abruptly.  


“Phasma, please!” Kylo begs.  


“General, may I be relieved?”  


“You’re not on duty to–”  


“Then goodnight,” she says, and leaves.  


Kylo turns to glare. “You told her to take time off!”

“I was being considerate!”  


“How would you like it if I told you to take time off?”  


“Well… what am I supposed to do? If I tell her to see the head medic she’ll hate me even more!”  


Kylo stands, trying for that calm and level place again. “I’m going to find her.”

“She _left_ , Kylo. She doesn’t _want_ to see us.”  


“Sometimes when people run away, they want chasing,” he snaps at his emotionally obtuse boyfriend.  


“Fine. Go fuck it up more. Do what you think is best.”  


“Hux…”  


“I’m serious, I’ve had enough of this. Go.”  


Kylo’s fighting a battle on two fronts, and he’s feeling even shittier about it than he did yesterday. Normally, when he’s feeling bad, he can make eyes at his lovers and one of them will coddle his pain away. But right now, they need _him_ to do it, and he’s… not sure how.

“This conversation isn’t over,” the Knight says. “Let me talk to Phasma first, and I’ll speak to you after.”  


Hux ignores him.

***

Phasma is hiding away in an off-duty section of the training barracks. It’s her go-to place, when she isn’t up to sparring, or training to work off her energy.

She’s holding a blaster-rifle, hands tightening and loosening by degrees. 

Kylo doesn’t feel threatened, even though it’s pointed at the door he walks through.

“Sir, I’m–”  


“Drop the rank,” he says, and pulls his helmet back off. “It’s just me.”  


She fixes eyes that have forgotten how to focus onto him. Her expression blank, and her movements mechanically jerky.

“Is it okay if I sit just close to you?”  


She does not respond, so he sits further down on the bench, and puts his helmet to the other side of him. 

“It’s okay if you just feel bad and want to feel bad. Or need to. Until it’s gone. Sometimes I have to feel angry until it’s gone.”  


“It’s… it’s not… that…”  


“Can you tell me some of what it is?”  


“It’s nothing. I - I mean it’s _nothing_. It’s like there’s… a space where something should be, and it’s empty. Or I can’t…”   


Kylo summons another blaster with the Force, flicks it to stun, and hands it over. “Shoot the wall?”

“S– Kylo, I–”  


“Do it, for me? Just once. More if you want to. Shoot every time there’s a word or thought you can’t say, and it gets you upset.”  


A pause, then she takes the blaster. 

“So you feel like there’s less emotion in you than you remember?”  


A nod.

“But this causes you some distress, anyway?”  


“Different feeling… like… feeling about feeling.”  


Kylo thinks about it for a moment, and then hums his agreement. “Would it help you to know I’ve felt like that, too? Sometimes?”

“No?”  


He snorts, and takes the other blaster. Flicks it to stun. Shoots at the far wall. “Sometimes it got too much. Either what I was doing, or remembering, or thinking. And then I’d go from deepest despair to… nothing.”

“Often?”  


“Often enough.”  


A long wait, and then she fires off more, talking over the top of the discharge. “How did you stop?”

“Sometimes I had to go on missions, or train, or scream at Hux a bit… sometimes I needed to cry, or get hugged, or… sleep.”  


“When… when you’d…”  


“When I’d be sad, and you’d help,” he agrees. “Some of it was that. Other times I was just plain crabby, or pissy, or tired.”  


She shoots more, until the blaster whines in protest. He lets her, and when she lowers the weapon, he puts his hand on hers. Just once, for a moment, and then pulls back.

“I don’t… know what will help,” she admits.   


“We’re not going to get it right every time, but we… both care a great deal about you. Hux just…”  


“Needs to shoot the ‘I don’t know what to say’ blaster more often than most?” she suggests.  


“Precisely. He just - he values work so much. So saying you should put yourself first… it wasn’t meant as an insult to your ability, he was… valuing you more than your… duties.”   


Phasma laughs, then, and although it’s a little sad… she does manage a tiny smile. “When did you get so wise?”

“Being around two wonderful people gave me a reason to try,” he admits.  


“Do you think he’ll still be mad at me for leaving dinner?”  


“I think if we pick up some spiced cake on the way back, he’ll forgive us both,” Kylo suggests. He plucks the rifles up, checks both over, and walks them back to the arms lockers.   


She wavers, and he catches her hand. “It’s okay. You’re going to feel bad lots. But we love you, so - if you want - you can feel bad around us, and we’ll do what we can to help you.”

Phasma pushes her face into his neck, and he turns to wrap her in the tightest hug he can. It’s not going to fix things, but it might keep her going, day by day. It’s working for him, isn’t it?


End file.
